Liverpool Playhouse date for The Absence of War

Reece Dinsdale as George Jones in The Absence of War (Image: Mark Douet)

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“I’d be useless,” laughs Reece Dinsdale at the idea of being a politician. “I’d be tongue tied and useless. I need somebody else’s lines to spout.

“Although funnily enough, people have come out (of the theatre) and they’ve gone ‘I’d vote for you!’ So there you go.”

Luckily for Reece, he does have someone else’s lines to say – playwright David Hare’s to be exact. The actor is currently appearing as PM hopeful George Jones in The Absence of War, coming to the Liverpool Playhouse this month.

Hare wrote the stinging political drama in the months following the 1992 General Election, based on his behind the scenes observations of the Labour party leadership during their – what turned out to be – unsuccessful campaign.

George Jones is the Labour leader desperate to get out of opposition and into Number 10, but he’s plagued by divisions in his own party and a hostile media. He needs to persuade the public he’s the right man to lead the country. But how far is he prepared to go?

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“George is an absolutely fantastic role,” smiles Reece. “The way David writes isn’t your normal naturalistic, throwaway everyday drama. He writes, as he says himself, in a kind of heightened form of drama. Some of this stuff feels and is played in a Shakespearean way.

“George is a character who’s got one foot in old Labour, and one foot in modernisation. But this is prophetic, because of course New Labour hadn’t been invented when David wrote the play.

“Labour, I’d still say, are hugely commendable in that they’d like to be able to speak out loud and have arguments within the party. But unfortunately they’ve found the only way to be electable, like every other party, is to plough the middle ground.

“How do you square the circle? How do you continue that tradition but get yourselves into power? It’s a real conundrum.

“George Jones is this brilliant, charismatic, vital, vibrant, funny, what we know as an orator, who’s been straight-jacketed. And eventually, when he’s asked to be his own man and speak, because the election is running away from him, he’s no longer got the power because he’s been straight-jacketed so long he can’t say anything any more, which kills him.”

The Headlong theatre company production is helmed by Jeremy Herrin, the Olivier Award-nominated director of Wolf Hall and Bring up the Bodies, and it’s the first time Reece has toured in more than 20 years.

The Absence of War coming to the Liverpool Playhouse (Image: Mark Douet)

“This was just one of those jobs – George Jones, Absence of War, David Hare, Jeremy Herrin, Headlong,” says the dad-of-two. “B****y hell, how do you say no?!”

The Absence of War is part of a trilogy, and the 55-year-old actor previously appeared in Hare’s Racing Demon at the National Theatre, followed by a short tour.

“And also,” he reveals, “John Thaw played this role, so the symmetry and the lineage that’s going through with John having played my dad (in popular 80s TV drama Hope to Roost) to me getting this role some 22 years later is wonderful isn’t it? It’s meant to happen.”

Despite more than three decades in the profession, and an extensive stage and screen CV, The Absence of War marks Reece’s first appearance on stage in Liverpool.

But he’ll be back here again as soon as the current tour ends, this time with a director’s hat on, filming an episode of LA Productions’ Moving On.

“I’ll be doing prep over the phone and on the laptop,” he says. “And then as soon as I finish, I’ll be dashing up to Liverpool the next day.

“I was playing the leading role in one of the Moving On episodes, and Colin (McKeown) said to me ‘you ought to direct one’. And I thought – this is a very strange but wonderful offer. I took him up on his word, and went for it, and thoroughly enjoyed it.